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The Third European Radio Astronomy Congress convened in the shadow of Heppenheim Castle, at the Starkenburg Observatory in Heppenheim, Germany the first weekend of September. For the second time, the triennial meeting was co-sponsored by The SETI League.

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European Radio Astronomy Club president (and SETI League regional coordinator) Peter Wright, DJ0BI, poses in front of the Starkenburg Observatory 3 meter dish. His native Scots attire speaks to the international and multicultural nature of this Congress.

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After two introductory lectures by SETI League executive director H. Paul Shuch, titled "Electromagnetic Spectrum Basics" and "The Magic of Microstrip" respectively, Peter Wright presents a lecture on printed circuit board Computer Aided Design tools. Many of the design tools he recommends are available as shareware from Abacom.

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The Congress included a first-day tour to Ranier Foertig Elektronik in Zwingenberg, a very fine local surplus dealer. Here amateur radio astronomers Juergen Morawietz of the Netherlands (left) and Erik Smith of Belgium, show off VHF transceivers they obtained there for use in their meteor scatter experiments.

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In his still controversial paper "Gravitation Correlated with Light," Rudolf Kiesslinger hypothesizes that the red shift observed from remote galaxies is an effect of gravitation, not expansion of the Universe.

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More than fifty amateur and professional radio astronomers from around the world crowded into the Starkenburg Observatory's small lecture hall for three days of technical talks.

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Congress meals served at the A bis Z restaurant on the market square in Heppenheim provided far more than physical nourishment. They afforded participants with a chance to socialize far into the night while sharing technical ideas.

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The European Radio Astronomy Club station in nearby Mannheim (viewed here at night) boasts multiple antennas for continuum radio astronomy, solar observations, gamma ray studies and pulsar detection over a wide range of frequencies.

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A 2.8 meter parabolic dish at the ERAC observatory is dedicated to Project Argus, and advertises SETI to the entire community.

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In direct contrast to Rudolf Kiesslinger's Steady State Universe presentation the day prior, an animated Prof. Ian Morrison of Manchester University's Jodrell Bank radio observatory presented several models for an expanding universe. His talk was titled "Mapping the Big Bang."

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From the Czech National Observatory, Karel Jrircka presents a talk on solar radio astronomy activities at Ondrejov, near Prague.

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SETI League member and software engineer David Woolley, from the UK, spoke about the SETI@home distributed computing experiment.

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German amateur radio astronomer Eckhard Kantz demonstrating his radio spectrometer, built around a Philips VHF/UHF TV tuner, controlled by a PIC microprocessor.

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Speakers exceeding their allotted time at the European Radio Astronomy Congress were subject to being rudely (and loudly) interrupted!

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The European Radio Astronomy Congress has been held every three years since 1997. Each time, the traditional group photo becomes more crowded, as attendance increases.

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Dr. Rainer Lenzen, of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heldelberg, described an adaptive optics system built for the NACO Very Large Telescope in Chile, from first idea to first images.

SETI League executive director H. Paul Shuch presented an overview of Project Argus and the Very Small Array at ERAC 2003.

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James Bryan, an engineer with Analog Devices based in the UK, came to ERAC 2003 direct from the TorCon World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto. He favored us with two presentations, one on direct digital synthesis, the other on the use of logarithmic amplifiers as wide-dynamic-range detectors.

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Marko Cebokli, our volunteer Regional Coordinator for Slovenia, reported on his attempted reception of the 1 Watt telemetry beacon from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, at a distance of 56 million kilometers, during the closest approach of Mars to Earth just one week prior. Because the expected signal was at a signal to noise ratio of about -9 dB in a 1 Hertz bandwidth, any detection will require post-reception processing (not yet completed), involving integration of about 100 samples, each one second in duration.

Also from ETH Zurich, Christian's colleague Meyer Hansueli describes the design and construction of the CALLISTO microcontroller.

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Rob Stammes from the Netherlands discusses his VHF receiving system for meteor counting, aurora detection, and the observation of other interesting phenomena.

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Looking to the future, Juergen Moraweitz of the Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy presented a paper titled "New Directions for Next Generation Radio Telescopes."

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Psychologist Maria Michaela Habram-Blanke, a doctoral candidate and research assistant at the University of Heidelberg, conducted a survey into public beliefs about UFOs. She reported her preliminary results from PSILAB at ERAC 2003.

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During an ERAC coffee break, H. Paul Shuch had a chance to meet with member Clemens Daehne from Berlin. Celemns is a neighbor of SETI League member Andrew Shuch, our executive director's son.

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Erik Smith from Belgium showed us his methods for solar flare detection at opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum: VLF and X-ray.

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French radio amateur Alain Nierveze showed his strip-chart recordings of solar observations on VHF, using both a single Yagi and a two-Yagi interferometer.

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At the conclusion of this year's Congress, the European Radio Astronomy Club announced the selection of SETI League president Richard Factor as recipient of the Club's highest honor, the DSP-FFT Award. Richard's award recognizes his years of leadership to The SETI League, as both founder and funder.